Pence slams Biden for veep email pseudonyms, says he ‘never’ emailed while vice president
WASHINGTON — Mike Pence says he never used email while vice president — much less accounts registered to pseudonyms as President Biden did — because of the security risk.
“The internet is never completely safe. I literally never used email when I was vice president,” Pence told John Catsimatidis in an interview Monday night on WABC 770 AM’s “Cats & Cosby Show.”
“So this idea of multiple emails with pseudonyms for Joe Biden over the years, I was just taken aback,” said Pence, referring to the president’s use of several email accounts during his eight-year vice presidency under Barack Obama.
“It is … one more example of everything that’s swirling around this administration,” said the former No. 2 under ex-President Donald Trump, referring to Biden. “They are under an ethical cloud now with everything happening around [first son] Hunter Biden.”
President Biden used accounts while veep such as the government-issued email address Robert.L.Peters@pci.gov and the Gmail account robinware456@gmail.com.
The National Archives and Records Administration recently acknowledged in response to a Freedom of Information Act request that it possesses nearly 5,400 emails, electronic records and documents pertaining to accounts registered to Joe Biden’s pseudonyms.
The GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee is seeking access to those records — noting that in at least 10 emails, then-Vice President Biden’s office cc-ed Hunter Biden on his Democratic dad’s daily schedules.
Pence, 64, is vying for the Republican presidential nomination to take on Biden, 80, in next year’s election but lags far behind Trump, 77, and other GOP candidates in polling. Pence ranks fifth among Republican contenders with 4.6% support in the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls.
House Republicans could launch an impeachment inquiry into President Biden as early as this month. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said last week that such an inquiry would be “a natural step forward” that “provides Congress the apex of legal power to get all the information they need.”
Biden’s defenders and the White House insist the president did nothing wrong, but House Republicans point to evidence that he met with his son’s business associates from China, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine during his vice presidency.
In addition, there was congressional testimony July 31 from Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer, who said Joe Biden regularly was on speakerphone during business meetings.
House Republicans also are investigating what IRS whistleblowers allege was a cover-up in the criminal investigation of the first son for allegedly failing to pay about $2.2 million in federal taxes from 2014 to 2019.
Hunter Biden had agreed to a probation-only plea deal brokered by Delaware US Attorney David Weiss’ office, but the agreement collapsed in July under scrutiny from a federal judge.
Veteran IRS agents Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler say tax investigators were barred by Weiss’ office from investigating Joe Biden’s role in Hunter’s dealings, even when communications directly implicated him, and that Biden-appointed US attorneys blocked charges against the first son in Los Angeles and Washington, DC.
Attorney General Merrick Garland elevated Weiss to a special counsel Aug. 11 so he could file charges outside his district.
Republicans said they feared that the move would prevent further investigation of foreign business dealings.
